Posted on 01/21/2005 12:29:43 PM PST by baseball_fan
The inaugural address was in several respects confusing. The arresting feature of it was of course the exuberant idealism. But one wonders whether signals were crossed in its production, and a lead here is some of the language used.
The commentators divulged that the speech was unusual especially in one respect, namely that President Bush turned his attention to it the very next day after his reelection. Peggy Noonan and Karen Hughes, speaking in different television studios, agreed that this was unusual. Presidents attach great importance to inaugural addresses, but they don’t, as a rule, begin to think about them on the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But in this case, that is evidently what happened. And this leads the observer to wonder about some of the formulations that were used, and clumsiness that was tolerated.
Mr. Bush said that “whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny.” You can simmer in resentment, but not in tyranny. He said that every man and woman on this earth has “matchless value.” What does that mean? His most solemn duty as President, he said, was to protect America from “emerging threats.” Did he mean, guard against emerging threats? He told the world that “there can be no human rights without human liberty.” But that isn’t true. The acknowledgment of human rights leads to the realization of human liberty. “The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them.” What is a “habit of control”?
An inaugural address is a deliberate statement, not an improvisation. Having been informed about how long the president spent in preparing it, the listener is invited to pay special attention to its message...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Because the conservatives want to stay out of the world as much as possible. They don't believe it's our job and they don't believe in grand missions. IMHO they are mistaken. If over the next decade just N Korea, Iran and China were to become more democratic, the world would be an immensely safer place. Bush has not proposed doing anything extreme to get there.
well now Buckley knows how I feel after listening to him all these years. LMAO
Obviously he meant that no amount of Martian flesh can be traded for a human. What's wrong with Bill?
What the hell do any of these speeches mean?
And now Buckley is saying that the word choices were quite to his liking. Sheesh!
I dropped a "not". The word choices were "not" to Buckley's liking.
What? The Great Obsfucator confused? My My.
Buckley must really be getting senile. President Bush's speech was crystal clear: It's open season on the bad guys, and we're going to roll them back like no one's business.
Why not? What's wrong with that phrase? Sheesshh
I honestly have not the slightest idea what bone Buckley is trying to pick here. What is his beef?
Misunderestimate away!!!
ah, jeez! there's too many damned "too"s in current news!
Peggy Noonan 1/21 => Referenced God too many times
Irish Aid Work 1/21 => US troops pulling out of Indonesias too soon
Hersh 1/19 => US too secretive
Coalition troops are too brutal; too few; too vulnerable . . .
It would be nice if the MSM actually worked on something worthwhile instead of pumping out more, and too many meaningless words / ideas.
Bush should just said:
Kiss my ( ! ), I here for 4 more years!
The MSM would have been in lather trying to discern how to interpret that inaugeral address : - )
I had to guffaw upon reading this. Yesterday, I criticized the speech here at FR and the bruises from the knee-jerk piling on response are still showing.
The minutiae of the apparent "boilerplate" sources and platitudes, as a substitute for thought, were too subtle for me to identify immediately, but Peggy Noonan and William Buckley have done a masterful job of it.
Mindless adulation for one of my favorite presidents seems to be a mindless requirement of the very young and the very rigid, here at FR.
What is Buckley saying?
Maybe it's He couldn't really mean that!!! could he?
Mike
Uh....when controlling others is a habit maybe?
I wonder if this has any relation to Peggy Noonan's screed. Perhaps the blueblood conservatives are getting nervous that the words might actually mean something.
But even granted the difficulties in applying the Bush code everywhere, the American realist inevitably asked himself questions, upon hearing the soaring, Biblical rhetoric of the president. How to apply the presidential criteria?
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